Interview with Poet Ellaraine Lockie continued


Pablo:  Now I thought we'd deviate from the usual interview questions and go a little deeper.  Let's start with this one: Why are men still ruling and running the planet?


Ellaraine:  Brute force.  In the end, after all discussion about women's rights and equal opportunities, men are still physically more powerful than women.  In many parts of the world men are legally allowed to use physical force against women--to go even as far as killing them.  And in parts of the world where it isn't legal, it still not only happens, but the fact and the threat often stand between the sexes as an unconscious force that influences not only relationships but community, state, national and international policies.


Pablo:  How are you affected by your dreaming life?


Ellaraine:  I love having dreams--even the nightmarish ones, because they mean that I've been able to get into a deep sleep.  I've battled insomnia for twelve years and have tried every remedy out there, I think, including two extensive stays at the Stanford Sleep Clinic. 

Before that, most dreams seemed like a continuation of my life, some euphoric and some horrendous but most rather day-to-day-like.  I've never spent much time analyzing them, but one particular and reoccurring dream fascinates me enough that I recently wrote a poem about it.  It involves flying, or perhaps floating in the air above every earthly thing.  I'm often in the form of an eagle.  This is an incredibly happy experience and leads me to suspect that I've either been an eagle or that I will be one eventually.  The closest awake feeling to this that I've ever had is when I do Tai Chi, where I sometimes feel like I'm floating through clouds. I didn't reach that state until I'd practiced Tai Chi for fifteen-plus years.


Pablo:  I find it more and more difficult to think of God in terms of gender.   I won't elaborate.  What would your thoughts be on this?


Ellaraine:  I stopped thinking of God as a kind-looking man with a beard when I stopped attending church after I left home for college.  God, for me, rather has evolved into a force.  I find this force in everything--people, animals, trees, rocks, the earth itself.  It's all connected.  Nothing affirmed this more for me than attending a writers' retreat called "Writing the World" two years ago in the Sonoran Desert with Harvey Stanbrough at the helm.  Harvey is one of my poetry mentors.  I'd like to add one of the resulting poems from his retreat at the end of this interview if there is space.  I think if we all adhered to what Harvey teaches in this retreat, there wouldn't be any more wars.  I wish its attendance were required for all world leaders.


Pablo: For this question I must loosely paraphrase the poet William Everson.  He believed that there was a "mantle" the poet could put on (if it fit) that endowed the poet with authority and that this was not to be taken lightly.  What are your thoughts on this?


Ellaraine:  I'm not familiar with William Everson or his stance on this subject, but my definition of a powerful poem is generally one that is written by someone who comes across as an authority on that which she/he has written.  Fakes usually can't pull off a good poem; the mantle just isn't going to fit.

As for a poet having this kind of authority, who better to have it other than a person who is committed to write truth?  Is there responsibility on the part of the poet?  Tremendous, but it's to the poet him/herself.  Readers are free to choose the impact the poem has on them.


Pablo:  If a complete stranger were to trust her infant to you to nurture until the child was three years old, what single thing would you feel was most important for that child?


Ellaraine:  Security, in all it's facets:  To be fed when hungry, to have its thirst quenched, to be physically held and emotionally nurtured, to be kept as safe and pain-free as possible and to be taught that someone loves it enough to enforce gentle, consistent and nonviolent discipline when the age/stage requires it. 


Pablo:  What in your opinion is the biggest source of trouble in the world today and what do you think can realistically be done about it?


Ellaraine:  I don't think there's any all-encompassing answer to this; the questions are much too complex for the space I have, not only on paper but in my mind.

I've been lucky enough to travel extensively, and the happiest people I've encountered are perhaps those in cultures that put the least emphasis on material things that money can buy and who put a big emphasis on family and community.  It seems to me that status quo gets out of kilter, even in these societies, when part of the people get overly greedy--for things, money or power.

What to do about it? I might know more about what not to do about it, and that's not to force one's government or religion on other countries or cultures that have functioned in their own ways since the beginning of time.  (I believe this comes under the "power" part of greed.)  Of course, we could try to send everyone to Harvey's "Writing the World" retreat; but there I go, trying to push my own beliefs on others.


Pablo: Imagine with me please.  If you were marooned on a remote island with two strangers. . . a world class female athlete and a female astrophysicist, what synthesis of thought might the three of you produce?


Ellaraine:  Boy, you weren't kidding when you said we were going to skip the usual questions and go a little deeper.  This is about the strangest question anyone has ever asked me.

Okay.  I know a bit about survival, not from fighting for it myself but from hearing about it through those close to me who did:  my parents and grandparents, who homesteaded on the Montana prairie in the late 1800s.  And that's what we're talking about here--survival.

My grandparents, when they were dependent upon the land for their livelihood, had little time to synthesize their thoughts in any way that didn't involve feeding and clothing themselves and their families. 

And that's what the three of us marooned on a remote island would be strategizing too.  The thought of it makes me squirm with how little I'd be able to contribute--perhaps the spinning of yarn from wild animals that the athlete would capture and then the knitting of those yarns into warmth to cover with and wear for insulation from exposure.  I could make paper out of natural fibers, one of my true craft talents, and sew clothes from the bark of trees.

I would likely be the one to do the killing for food after the athlete hunted down the animals.  I can mercy-kill, again as a result of growing up in Montana, so I could kill to stay alive.  I might be able to make a fire from two sticks of wood, as a result of an excellent demonstration in a Masai village in Kenya recently.

As for the astrophysicist's contribution, she'd probably entertain us at night with her extensive knowledge, as we lie gazing at the stars.  I could fictionalize and poetize what she said and record it using natural plant dyes on the handmade papers.  Eventually, we'd probably discuss lesbianism.


Pablo: The world is ending tomorrow at noon. What will you do between now and then?


Ellaraine:   I'll gather up my family and anyone we love who chooses to come, and we'll cook and eat a last meal together, incorporating everyone's favorite foods and wines.  (Mine will be popcorn, any Caparone wine, homemade bread and Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heathbar Crunch Ice Cream.)  Then we'll make music together.  (My family is very musical.)  Then we'll break into privacy, with partners or vibrators or magazines or whatever works, for a final sexual encounter.  Lastly, we'll all hold hands, tell stories about each other as though we were attending our own funerals, and then we'd vow to meet in our afterlives.

Of course, this is all idealized.  Maybe I'll just be immobilized by fear of pain and death or crazy in anguish that children and grandchildren, all of them all over, won't have a chance to live full lives.  Who really knows how any of us will react in outrageous situations?